Ex-worker to sue city

MIDDLETOWN -- A former Water and Sewer Department employee intends to sue the city, alleging he was terminated in retaliation for participating in a federal discrimination suit currently pending against the city.

JOHN CHRISTIE

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, August 10, 2000

According to a notice of intent to sue filed with the Town Clerk's Office on Aug. 3 by attorney Charles G. Parks Jr., on May 31 Battista D. Cendali was terminated as a Water and Sewer utility worker for "numerous counts of insubordination."

Parks said Cendali, who is white, was terminated in retaliation for participating in a suit filed -- currently active at the U.S. Court District in Hartford -- with seven other former Water and Sewer workers, claiming the department had discriminated against its black and Hispanic employees.

"He was continually harassed and ultimately terminated," Parks said.

The notice stated Cendali was subject to "torturous interference with contractual rights, breach of covenant and good faith and fair dealing, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel and slander."

Park said, "We feel his termination was purely retaliatory for participating in this suit. Their reasons for terminating him were purely bogus."

Parks said following a unemployment hearing at the Department of Labor, the city's reasons for terminating Cendali "were unfounded."

A Department of Labor spokesperson said a grievance by Cendali was indeed filed, but could not make the details public.

Mayor Domenique S. Thornton and city Personnel Director William F. Vernile and Water and Sewer Director Guy Russo, who were all named specifically in the notice, declined to comment, because it is a legal matter.

City Attorney Trina Solecki was at an-out-of-town hearing and unavailable for comment.

The notice is the latest in a series of actions claiming the Water and Sewer Department discriminated against workers because of their race.

In the federal suit filed in August 1998, former workers Moses J. bond, Joel E. Brown, Curtis Cockfield and Tanya Oliver-Perry claimed the department had failed to provide

training opportunities, indulged in groundless disciplinary actions and sometimes did not give them overtime pay.

Cendali and former worker Richard Dimmock, who is white, joined in the suit, claiming they witnessed such acts by department directors.

Workers first filed complaints in 1996 with the state Commission of Human Rights and Opportunities, which became a major issue in the primary between Thornton